Lunch With Skylar

The morning goes by fairly quickly. We manage two dungeon runs before lunch time, the same as yesterday. We beat the dungeon both times with minimal effort. The first time, I level up to level 16. Even with the reduced experience from the skeletons, the Overlord boss still gives the same absurd number of XP.

At level 16, I am now technically within the requirements for tier 4. Mia and I try another tier 3 dungeon, just to see how much the experience has diminished, now that both of us out level it.

The answer is ‘severely diminished’. The skeletons give a mere 5XP, while defeating the boss yields a pitiful 150XP, a sharp dive from the ludicrous 1500XP that it’s given up until this point. It was worth the time to see if there could be any kind of cheesing the level and experience system, but it’s not surprising to find that we can’t. It would be a pretty huge oversight if I could farm low level enemies for high experience; ‘don’t design a system like that in your game’ is literally RPG 101.

Regardless of the second dungeon giving a relatively low level of XP, I’m still halfway to level 17 by the time lunch rolls around. Mana bolt is now level 2, which is nice. There was no significant loot from the two runs either, besides the extra money that’s useful.

I list everything else on the auction, now that I have the ability to do that, and after checking with Mia that she doesn’t want anything. I also now have 20 extra points of MP, putting my mana bar at 204MP, at its maximum. Progress is looking good.

Mia and I don’t have to wait long after the end of our second dungeon run for Skylar to show up. We’ve barely been resting 10 minutes when Mia gets a text saying that Skylar is a couple minutes away. At that point, not wanting to be lazy and eat unhealthy all time, Mia gets up to make us some lunch. “Do I have to help?” I complain playfully as Mia drags me to the kitchen. “You do if you want to stay here, little Missy.” She responds, batting my arm. I smack her ass in response.

“Who are you calling little Missy?” I ask. She turns to look at me and while her expression is very much not impressed, I can see a glint of mischief in her eyes. “My gorgeous girlfriend, who needs to learn to shut her mouth and help out once in a while.” She says, and I would very much feel guilty at that moment, if I couldn’t tell that she’s joking. “But complaining is fun!” I whine in an exaggerated manner, and Mia suppresses a snort.

“You are a spoilt brat.” She says instead. I giggle at her words. “How could I not be spoilt? I have the most amazing and beautiful girlfriend in the world.” Mia shakes her head and fails to hold back a smile. “You’re something else.” “But you love me.” I tease. “But I love you.” She echoes, giving me a quick kiss, as we get to the kitchen.

We make a simple lunch of sandwiches, with ham, cheese, tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise. When I raise the question of whether or not it’s a good idea to put cheese on the sandwiches, since we don’t know if Skylar has an allergy to dairy, Mia looks at me incredulously.

“You do understand that allergies aren’t a thing in the abyss, right babe?” She asks. “You do understand that I have known about this super secret magical underbelly of society for less than a week now, right babe?” I ask, echoing her tone of voice almost perfectly. “Well screw you then.” Mia says and I laugh.

Skylar arrives soon after and we sit down to eat lunch. “That’s a good idea. It’ll help with teamwork.” Skylar says, after we mention how we shared the details of our abilities with each other. Mia and I both hand Skylar the pieces of paper that we wrote stuff on, She raises an eyebrow at that.

“You’re trusting me with this, just like that?” Skylar asks. “You’re in our guild, so yeah, we trust you. You aren’t going to use anything against us, are you?” Mia asks. Skylar shakes her head. “Well no, of course not. It’s just a strange idea to me.” She replies.

Skylar takes a look over both the papers as we eat, and Mia and I watch in silence. She doesn’t comment on Mia’s paper, but whistles when she reads mine. “Missus bullshit indeed. Excuse the language, but how the fuck can you do all of that?” Skylar asks, looking at me. I chuckle at her bluntness. “I have no idea.” I admit. “I just woke up with these powers. I’ve had to grind a bit to get where I am, but it’s been less than a week so far.” “What do you mean ‘grind’?” She asks, a tone of genuine curiosity in her voice.

“It’s a video game thing. It means to fight enemies for experience, to get more powerful.” I reply. Skylar nods in understanding. “Oh, that makes sense. I was never allowed to play video games.” She says in explanation. “Would you like to play with us?” Mia asks. “Video games can be fun.” Skylar ponders the question for a few seconds. “Yes, I think I’d like to try that.”

“On another note, you trusted me with details of your abilities, so I’ll trust you with details of mine. I can put up barriers, make simple solid objects and hit things with them, and I can blend in with shadows if the conditions are right.” Skylar explains. “Thank you for trusting us.” I tell her. “Thank you for accepting me.” She replies, a small smile on her face.

“In the spirit of trust, there’s something else I should tell you.” I tell her, talking completely on impulse. Skylar raises an eyebrow and Mia looks at me in surprise. “I’m transgender.” I say. “Oh. Cool.” Skylar responds, continuing to eat. “That’s it? No outrage or anything?” I ask, honestly having expected more of a reaction. “Yeah, I don’t care if you’re transgender or cisgender. You do you, as long as you’re happy.” She says, giving me a small smile once more.

After lunch, we face a small dilemma. Skylar is the lowest level out of the three of us, at only level 13. Mia and I are both high enough level to be able to handle the tier 4 dungeons, but Skylar isn’t yet. “Just do the more difficult one. The training will be good for me. Promise not to let me die though?” Skylar asks. “We promise.” I reassure her, and that satisfies her. That being decided, we open the tier 4 version of the skeletons dungeon for the first time.

The tier 4 skeleton dungeon is really not much different to the tier 3 version. It’s the same thing with higher levelled enemies. The regular skeletons are level 16, which works out to be the average level of the three of us, so Skylar doesn’t struggle too much and I find that I can hold my own decently well. My increased mana regeneration, plus more experience in combat and my new skill are helping.

The Overlord boss is still level 25, which I find a little strange. You’d think that with the higher tier dungeon, that the boss would be a higher level, maybe level 30 this time or something. It makes me wonder whether the level 25 boss was given to us a little early, but I’m not sure.

Even with it’s high level, we manage to handle it. We’ve gotten some practice working as a group by this point, so we kill it without too much trouble. Skylar does get a few scrapes, and we take some time after we’ve finished the dungeon to bandage her up properly. Really, we’ve been really lucky so far that none of us have been seriously injured. Gamer’s body means I don’t get injured the same way, but neither of them have that luxury.

It crosses my mind that we really need a healer, and my thoughts go back to the spirit crystal, and the hopeful merging of it with the statue of Poison Ivy. I have no idea how to do that though, and at the moment, I don’t know anybody I could trust to do it for me. With that in mind, while we’re resting, I take the crystal out of my inventory and show it to Skylar, asking if she has any idea how to use it. Her eyes widen when she sees the crystal.

“Keep that hidden Gemma, there are people out there who would kill or much worse for that.” Skylar says, matter of factly. “Well, I’m going to use it sometime. I’m just not sure how yet.” I reply. “Be very careful. Any gang around would be really interested in it. I don’t know how to use one, but I know how much those ones are worth. It’s high quality, that much I know for sure.” She warns.

Nodding in understanding, I put it back into my inventory. I divide the money with Skylar and list the rest of the loot on the auction. More of the same stuff that we’ve already gotten. The necromancy book hasn’t dropped either, which is good because it means that I don’t have to make any decisions about it.